Dissolving the wrong kind of reason problem

Philosophical Studies 172 (6):1455-1474 (2015)
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Abstract

According to fitting-attitude (FA) accounts of value, X is of final value if and only if there are reasons for us to have a certain pro-attitude towards it. FA accounts supposedly face the wrong kind of reason (WKR) problem. The WKR problem is the problem of revising FA accounts to exclude so called wrong kind of reasons. And wrong kind of reasons are reasons for us to have certain pro-attitudes towards things that are not of value. I argue that the WKR problem can be dissolved. I argue that (A) the view that there are wrong kind of reasons for the pro-attitudes that figure in FA accounts conflicts with the conjunction of (B) an extremely plausible and extremely weak connection between normative and motivating rea- sons and (C) an extremely plausible generality constraint on the reasons for pro- attitudes that figure in FA accounts. I argue that when confronted with this trilemma we should give up (A) rather than (B) or (C) because there is a good explanation of why (A) seems so plausible but is in fact false, but there is no good explanation of why (B) and (C) seem so plausible but are in fact false.

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Rach Cosker-Rowland
University of Leeds

Citations of this work

Moral encroachment and reasons of the wrong kind.James Fritz - 2020 - Philosophical Studies 177 (10):3051-3070.
Fittingness: A User’s Guide.Chris Howard & Rach Cosker-Rowland - 2022 - In Chris Howard & Rach Cosker-Rowland, Fittingness. OUP.
Reasons as Reasons for Preferences.Rach Cosker-Rowland - 2022 - American Philosophical Quarterly 59 (3):297-311.

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What We Owe to Each Other.Thomas Scanlon (ed.) - 1998 - Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
On What Matters: Two-Volume Set.Derek Parfit - 2001 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Slaves of the passions.Mark Schroeder - 2007 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Taking Morality Seriously: A Defense of Robust Realism.David Enoch - 2011 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press UK.
What We Owe to Each Other.Thomas Scanlon - 2002 - Mind 111 (442):323-354.

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